obscuring what would otherwise be a spectacular view of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
Farther inside the suite came a control and sample preparation area. Here were black-topped lab benches, computer consoles, the awkward bulk of two scanning tunneling electron microscopes, and the other equipment needed to oversee nanotech design and production processes.
The true “holy of holies” was the inner core: visible only through sealed observation windows on the far wall. This was a chamber full of mirror-bright stainless steel tanks; mobile equipment skids loaded with pumps, valves, and sensor devices; vertically mounted disk frames for osmotic filters; and stacked Lucite cylinders packed with various grades of purification gels, all connected with looping lengths of clear, silastic tubing.
Smith knew that the core could be reached only through a succession of air locks and gowning roofhs. Anyone working inside the production chamber had to wear fully sterile coveralls, gloves and boots, and an air- displacement breather helmet. He smiled wryly. If the Lazarus Movement activists camped outside ever saw anyone wearing that alien-looking getup, it would confirm all their worst fears about mad scientists toying with deadly toxins.
In truth, of course, the real situation was exactly the reverse. In the world of nanotechnology, humans were the source of danger and contamination. A falling flake of skin, a hair follicle, the wafted particles of moisture breathed out in casual conversation, and the shotgun blast of a sneeze all could wreak havoc on the nanoscale, releasing oils, acids, alka-lines, and enzymes that could poison the manufacturing process. Humans were also a rich source of bacteria: fast-growing organisms that would consume production broths, clog filters, and even attack the developing nanodevices themselves.
Fortunately, most of the necessary work could be done remotely from outside the core and the control and sample preparation chambers. Robotic manipulators, computer-controlled motorized equipment skids, and other innovations greatly reduced the need for humans to enter the “clean rooms.” The incredible level of automation in its lab suites was one of the Teller Institute's most popular innovations, since it gave scientists and technicians far more freedom of movement than at other facilities.
Smith threaded through the maze of desks in the outer room, making his way toward Dr. Philip Brinker, the senior scientist for Harcourt Bio-sciences. The tall, pale, rail-thin researcher had his back to the entrance, so intently studying the image relayed from a scanning electron microscope that he didn't catch Jon's cat-quiet approach.
Brinker's chief assistant, Dr. Ravi Parikh, was more alert. The shorter, darker molecular biologist looked up suddenly. He opened his mouth to warn his boss, then closed it with a shy smile when Smith winked at him and motioned for silence.
Jon stopped just two feet behind the two researchers and stood at ease.
“Damn, that looks nice, Ravi,” Brinker said, still peering at the image on the screen in front of him. “Man, I bet our favorite DoD spook is gonna bow down before us when he sees this.”
This time Smith did not bother hiding his grin. Brinker always called him a spook — a spy. The Harcourt scientist meant it as a joke, a kind of running gag about Smith's role as an observer for the Pentagon, but Brinker had no clue as to just how close that was to the truth.
The fact was that Jon was more than just an Army officer and scientist. From time to time he took on missions for Covert-One, a top-secret intelligence outfit reporting directly to the president. Covert-One worked in the shadows, so far back in the shadows that no one in Congress or the of-' ficial military-intelligence bureaucracy even knew it existed. Fortunately, Jon's work here at the Institute was purely scientific in nature.
Smith leaned forward, looking right over the senior Harcourt scientist's shoulder. “So what is it exactly that's going to make me worship the ground you walk on, Phil?”
Startled, Brinker jumped six inches in the air. “Jesus Christ!” He spun round. “Colonel, you pull that ghost act on me just one more time and I swear to God I'm gonna drop dead right in front of you! Then how would you feel?”
Smith laughed. “Sorry, I guess.”
“Sure you would,” Brinker grumbled. Then he brightened. “But since I'm not dead, despite your best efforts, you can take a look at what Ravi and I have cooked up today. Feast your eyes on the not-yet-patented Mark Two Brinker-Parikh nanophage, guaranteed to zap cancer cells, dangerous bacteria, and other internal nasties… most of the time, anyway.”
Smith moved closer and studied the hugely magnified black-and-white image on the monitor. It showed a spherical semiconductor shell packed with an assortment of complex molecular structures. A scale indicator on one side of the screen told him he was looking at an assembly that was just two hundred nanometers in diameter.
Smith was already familiar with the Harcourt research team's general concept. Brinker and Parikh and the others were focused on creating medical nanodevices — their “nanophages” — that would hunt down and kill cancer cells and disease-causing bacteria. The interior of the sphere he was examining should be loaded with the biochemical substances — phosphatidylserine and other costimulator molecules, for example — needed either to trick the target cells into committing suicide or to mark them for elimination by the body's own immune system.
Their Mark I design had failed in early animal testing because the nanophages themselves were destroyed by the immune system before they could do their work. Since then Jon knew the Harcourt scientists had been evaluating different shell configurations and materials, trying hard to find a combination that would be effectively invisible to the body's natural defenses. And for months the magic formula had eluded them.
He glanced up at Brinker. “This looks almost identical to your Mark One configuration. So what have you changed?”
“Take a closer look at the shell coating,” the blond-haired Harcourt scientist suggested.
Smith nodded and took over the microscope controls. He tapped the keypad gently, slowly zooming in on a section of the outer shell. “Okay,” he said. “It's bumpy, not smooth. There's a thin molecular coating of some kind.” He frowned. “The structure of that coating looks hauntinglv familiar… but where have I seen it before?”
“The basic idea came to Ravi here in a flash,” the tall, blond-haired researcher explained. “And like all great ideas it's incredibly simple and freaking obvious… at least after the fact.” He shrugged. “Think about one particularly bad little mother of a bacterium — resistant staphylococcus aureus. How does it hide from the immune system?”
“It coats its cell membranes in polysaccharides,” Smith said promptly. He looked at the screen again. “Oh, for Pete's sake…”
Parikh nodded complacently. “Our Mark Twos are essentially sugar-coated. Just like all the best medicines.”
Smith whistled softly. “That is brilliant, guys. Absolutely brilliant!”
“With all due modesty, you are right about that,” Brinker admitted. He laid one hand on the monitor. “That beautiful Mark Two you see here should do the trick. In theory, anyway.”
“And in practice?” Smith asked.
Ravi Parikh pointed toward another high-resolution display — this one the size of a wide-screen television. It showed a double-walled glass box secured to a lab table in an adjoining clean room. “That is just what we are about to find out, Colonel. We have been working almost nonstop for the past thirty-six hours to produce enough of the new design nanophages for this test.”
Smith nodded. Nanodevices were not built one at a time with microscopic tweezers and drops of subatomic glue. Instead, they were manufactured by the tens of millions or hundreds of millions or even billions, using biochemical and enzymatic processes precisely controlled by means of pH, temperature, and pressure. Different elements grew in different chemical solutions under different conditions. You started in one tank, formed the basic structure, washed away the excess, and then moved your materials to a new chemical bath to grow the next part of the assembly. It required constant monitoring and absolutely precise timing.
The three men moved closer to the monitor. A dozen white mice occupied the clear double-walled container. Half of the mice were lethargic, riddled with lab-induced tumors and cancers. The other six, a healthy control group, scampered here and there, looking for a way out. Numbered and color-coded tags identified each mouse. Video cameras and a variety of other sensors surrounded the box, ready to record every event once the experiment began.
Brinker pointed to a small metal canister attached to one end of the test chamber. “There they are, Jon. Fifty million Mark Two nanophages all set to go, plus or minus five million either way.” He turned to one of the lab techs
